In a voyage a decade in the making, NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft swept by Pluto Tuesday. As cheers went up inside NASA’s Mission Control, hundreds of people partying at Chabot Space and Science Center were cheering as well.

The northern hemisphere will experience its shortest day and longest night of the year as the Winter Solstice will take place on Saturday. In the Bay Area, there are events to mark the occasion and welcome winter.

The so-called “transit of Venus” — when the planet Venus passes between the Earth and our sun — is expected to begin shortly after 3 p.m. when the planet will appear as a small black dot slowly moving across the sun.